


Ill Be Back

by accol



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Banter, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, New Relationship, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:01:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13019967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accol/pseuds/accol
Summary: Mike was startled awake the next morning by the sound of Harvey sneezing. Twelve times in a row.A story about how you should always take care of your boyfriend when he's sick, even when he is an unmanageable asshole (in which case you beg for help).





	Ill Be Back

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays to velocitatis!
> 
> Thanks to @kho for beta and @statusquoergo for helpful discussions

It was _almost_ funny.  Pretty damn close.

If Mike hadn’t felt muddy water trickling down his own temple, the unadulterated shock that was frozen on Harvey’s face would have been worth a good laugh.  It was a pie-in-the-face sight gag straight out of a Three Stooges movie.

“This was not the kind of wet I imagined for our night,” Mike quipped, shaking his arms and flinging droplets back down onto the ground. He tried drying the side of his face against his shoulder with marginal success.

Mike’s suit was mostly unharmed.  Just the arms of his coat were soaked.  Harvey on the other hand… Mike put his arms back around Harvey, feeling his shoulder, then his hip, reaching down to feel the wet material squish objectionably at Harvey's lower back.  He was dripping from the top of his head all the way down to his shoes.  

Mike stifled a snort, because of all the people in New York, this was not something that befell Harvey Specter.  He couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Rene would lay a big, fat Italian egg if he saw you like this.”

Harvey’s shock morphed into anger in a sudden wave.  Voice tight and hard and clipped, he asked, “What was his license plate?”

Early winter in New York could mean a heat wave followed by freezing rain topped off with wind gusts that could remove the toupee from a certain 5th Avenue politician.  But here on the sidewalk outside Momofuku Ko, after an amazing dinner together serenaded by the sound of raindrops against the restaurant windows, it was almost spring-like.  Optimism, warming bodies… and puddles big enough to hide Nessie.  

Less than a minute ago, Harvey had been grinning through a story about Alex and a spectacularly bad hand of Atlantic City poker that had been interrupted by a slightly tipsy, post-Trump Marla Maples.  He’d been stroking his fingers along Mike’s lapels as he reminisced… right up until the Uber-generated tsunami drenched them.   

When Mike didn't respond to Harvey’s agitated ask right away, Harvey’s gaze drilled into him like Mike bore some responsibility for their current state.  

“What was the asshole’s goddamn license plate number?”  

“Didn’t catch it. I was too busy admiring the way your mouth moves when you talk and then getting doused by the same puddle you did,” Mike replied, slightly annoyed by Harvey’s tone.

Harvey leveled Mike with a withering look.  “I’m going home,” he said, turning to walk away like he was going to abandon Mike here on the curb.  

“Harvey.”   _What the hell?_ “Harvey!  No, you don’t,” Mike said, grabbing Harvey's arm to stop his escape.  

“No?” Harvey growled.  A cold gust of wind came from between the buildings and Harvey shivered involuntarily in his wet clothes.

“No,” Mike said back with equal force.  “You aren't walking away from me after the awesome date we just had. We are going back to your place, getting into a hot shower together, and making each other come.”

Harvey took a breath like he was preparing to argue, so Mike kissed him roughly.  

“Don't argue. I'm right and you know it.”

“You should have gotten his plate--” Harvey protested.

Mike cut him off with another kiss.

“Are you going to keep--”

And another.

“You’re impossible,” Harvey said, softening.

Mike kissed him again.  “We’re only four blocks from your place.”

“Four and a half.”

“Fine, four and a half.”  Mike leaned close to breathe the next part into Harvey’s ear, “Which gives you exactly enough time to think about how you want me.”

Turns out, Harvey was largely amenable to Mike’s original plan of a hot shower and hot sex.  He pressed Mike to his knees in the warm spray of his ridiculous multi-headed monstrosity of a shower.

“Your shower reminds me of Medusa,” Mike said, kissing his way across Harvey’s lower stomach and nosing through the trail of hair there.

“Poor analogy,” Harvey replied, stroking his fingers through Mike’s wet hair.  “Hydra is the one with multiple heads.  Furthermore, we haven’t been turned to stone.”

“Yet,” Mike said.

“Still moving,” Harvey said back, tugging on Mike’s hair to make his point.

Mike licked up Harvey’s length and was rewarded with a hiss of pleasure.  He supposed now, as he took Harvey into his mouth and made a good show of his enthusiasm, Harvey wouldn’t much care what Mike named the shower.  And Mike was too busy to point out that Harvey did indeed come to a _grinding_ halt.

“You take care of me,” Harvey gasped as his orgasm approached.  He shuddered then and spilled down Mike's throat.

“It's reciprocal,” Mike said as he stood.  At least a hundred examples of Harvey taking care of Mike's problems flooded Mike’s memories.

“Indeed it is,” Harvey said, taking his turn on his knees until the water ran tepid.

 

\----

 

Mike was startled awake the next morning by the sound of Harvey sneezing.

 _Twelve times in a row_.

“Kleenex,” Harvey wheezed, holding out one hand while the other stayed cupped by his nose.  He opened and closed his fist in a _hurry up and give it to me already_ motion.

“Where are they?” Mike asked, searching around the bedroom, then the bathroom.  He brought Harvey a hand towel instead because it was the best he could come up with in the face of Harvey’s urgency.

“Were you born in a barn?  I need a _tissue_.”

Mike rolled his eyes and came back with the entire roll of toilet paper.  “Happier?”

“Thrilled.”  Harvey’s voice was muffled by the wad of paper he shoved against his nose.

Mike held out the wastepaper basket to take the used tissue. Harvey unrolled another long strip and gave a honking blow.  

“I feel like ass.”

“To be fair, you kind of look like ass too.”

Harvey chucked the snotty tissue at Mike.  He caught it in the can.  

Mike added, “Seriously, though, are you feeling ok?”

Harvey flopped back onto his pillow.  “Unless feeling like ass is suddenly a good thing, no I do not.”

Mike returned the trashcan to the bathroom and sat down on the edge of Harvey’s bed.  The last time Mike saw a box of Kleenex here had been two months ago.  He'd shown up at Harvey's after dark, unsure where else he should go.

“Rachel broke up with me,” Mike had said on Harvey’s doorstep.

“You need a tissue?”  Harvey waved him inside.

“Don't be a jackass.”

“Apparently that's all I know how to be,” Harvey had said morosely.

Mike raised his eyebrows in question.

“Paula left a Dear John letter.”

“Shit,” Mike said quietly.  “ _You_ need a tissue?”

They’d spent the next few hours drinking scotch and reminiscing on the couch.  Harvey had shown him Paula’s letter, which she had left on the coffee table before abruptly leaving New York.  

In Mike’s slightly inebriated, yet totally valid opinion, “That letter is half-assed, so was she, and you deserve more.  A whole ass, if you will.”

Harvey had snorted and clinked glasses with him.  “Here’s to getting a whole ass.”

“Amen to that.”

Rachel had done something similar when she’d moved out that night.  But the _it’s not you, it’s me_ happened face-to-face.  It wasn’t half-assed _exactly_.  They’d just postponed their wedding, and postponed it again, until Rachel wondered out loud why they kept pushing it off.

When Mike related that story to Harvey, he proffered the Kleenex box again.  Mike threw an ice cube at him in retaliation, and with drunkenly awesome aim it slid right down the neck of Harvey’s shirt.

“You little shit,” Harvey said, leaping onto Mike to -- Mike expected -- give him a pounding.

Indeed Mike did get a pounding the next day when they sobered up, but it was a fully consenting adult pounding that Mike was happy to feel for the rest of the weekend.

So, the comfortable but half-assed relationships they had had were over.  No tears fell.  No reddened eyes.  Instead it’d given them both the nudge they’d needed for years.  

“Looks like I got a whole ass,” Harvey said in the wake of their first time together, resting his hand on the bare curve of Mike’s lower back.

“Same here.”

“I’m not an ass.”

“Yes.  You are.”

“Ok, I concede the point,” Harvey said with a proud grin, because he is definitely a whole ass.

And that was how Mike found himself proffering a roll of toilet paper to Harvey to clean up a handful of snot, all the while thinking Harvey was both adorably rumpled and annoyingly snippy.

“Better call in sick to your boss.”

“It’s Sunday, and I’m my own boss.”

“Clearly,” Mike said tucking him in.  “But I’m not, so I’m going in for a while to pick up some files.”

“Come back with Kleenex.”

 

\----

 

Mike indeed came back around noon armed with tissues and his copy of _Ferris Bueller_.  Because who doesn’t feel better after watching Ferris school the audience on how to fake a cold?  Plus, Mike always proofed files better with a movie or music playing in the background.  Harvey could convalesce while Mike constructed their case against--

Mike stopped in his tracks.  Harvey was laying face down on the couch with one leg dangling off like he’d been dropped there.

“Where’s your shirt?” Harvey asked, squinting over at Mike.  

Harvey was so stuffed up, Mike wasn’t 100% sure he’d heard him right.

“On my body?”  He looked down at himself and then back at Harvey while making a gesture that said _here it is, imagine that_.

“Not that one,” Harvey grumped.  “The gray one.”  

This sounded more like _da gway wub_ , which was at least marginally cute.  Cuteness, however, didn’t mean Mike could conjure a random shirt out of nowhere.  So he shrugged.  

“At my apartment probably.  Why?”

“I want it.”

“You want my shirt.”

Harvey blew his nose loudly.  Mike had the sense that it was a gesture of annoyance.

“You have at least--”  Mike went down the hall, into Harvey’s closet, and rummaged through his drawers.  “A half a dozen gray t-shirts in here.  How about your Harvard one?” he yelled.  He came back out of the bedroom with it in his hands, logo facing outward.

Harvey looked at him for a moment, a huffy pout on his face, before rolling over and tugging the throw blanket up around his ears.  

“Seriously.  Harvey.”

“It’s not that big of an ask, Mike,” Harvey said to the back of the couch.  “But if you don’t want to, I’m not going to--”

“You’re not going to what?  Boss me around like I’m your associate again?”

“Forget it,” he said, rolling back over to look at Mike.  “Forget I asked.”

“I’m not going to forget about it,” Mike said exasperatedly.  

“It smells like you,” Harvey said quietly.

Mike stared at him, looking for signs that Harvey was mocking him.  Seeing none, he capitulated.  

“Fine, I’ll get you the shirt.  What else do you need?  Dry cleaning?  A monogrammed Kleenex holder?  A nice Chateau du Robitussin?”

Harvey threw up his middle finger.  Mike went over and smooched it.  Harvey grunted.

Mike put _Ferris Bueller_ in the DVD player and then said, “I'll be back,” in his best Terminator voice.  “No, wait.  It’s gotta be _ILL_ _be back_ , because you’re sick.  See, what I did there?  It’s funny because--”

Harvey missed when he tried to whack Mike with the couch pillow. 

 

\---

 

“I might be late tomorrow,” Mike said to Donna’s voicemail right before descending into the depths of the subway.  “Harvey’s being, well… extra Harvey.”

He got a text later that linked to a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem.  

 

( _When she was good,_

_She was very good indeed,_

_But when she was bad she was horrid._ )  

 

He got a second text a moment later with a wink emoji.  

Mike didn’t know that Donna used emojis.  He did, however, know that she would have useful advice about dealing with sick Harvey.

He texted back:   _Def on the horrid side right now.  Sick as a dog and as ornery as a junkyard one._

 

She replied:   _No whining. You knew what you signed up for._

And in bold text:   **_Get moving._ **

 

Like she knew Mike was on an errand for Harvey.  She probably had them all lojacked.

 

\----

 

It was dark outside (damn winter hours) when he finally got back to Harvey’s apartment, his ratty gray t-shirt in hand. He found Harvey asleep hugging the toilet.

“Christ,” Mike whispered.  “Harvey?  C’mon, let’s get you up.”  

Harvey awoke with a start and leveled Mike with an angry look.

“Why’re you here?”

Mike hauled Harvey to his feet, and he didn’t rise to the bait, as much as it stung.

“I don’t need your goddamn help,” Harvey said, pushing away from Mike’s supporting arm and stumbling to the bed.

Clearly false.  He had needed Mike’s help plenty over the last two-thirds of a decade, and this was no exception.  But if Harvey wanted no help, then he could have no help.  None of this was Mike’s fault, and he didn’t need to put up with Harvey implying it was.

Mike did, however, get him a bucket for next to the bed before he went back to his own apartment.  

This was ridiculous.

 

\----

 

“Donna, he transformed into an adult-sized small child.”

She laughed like this was funny.  “Congratulations!  I was wondering how soon you’d unlock the treasure that is Harvey when he gets his biennial cold.”

“How can I have known him for this long and not have seen this?” Mike asked, feeling like he’d missed a huge thing that he should have known about.

“Because I always handled it.”

“How?” Mike pleaded.  “He’s a gigantic asshole.”

“First, Harvey is generally an asshole, not just while he’s ill.”

“Good point.”

“And second, I’m Donna.  I handle things.”

“Can you come handle the thing again?”

She laughed again.  Mike did not feel like this was a promising sign.  

“You’re precious.  Also, that’s your problem now.  For...”  She looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Eight weeks.  Even though neither of you had the backbone to fess up about it.”

Mike felt a little remorseful for not telling her directly about their (still new) relationship, but mostly he felt desperate for information about how to fix his broken boyfriend.  Clearly she’d put two and two together on her own.  And clearly Donna knew Harvey better than he did in some ways.  

Mike needed a consult so he bargained (or grovelled, depending on perspective).  He put his morning coffee on her desk as preliminary payment.

“Donna, I’ll buy you coffee for a week.”  

She paused and then said, “Two weeks.”

“Deal.”

“I expect it on my desk by 7:30 each morning,” she ordered smugly, taking a sip of Mike’s coffee.  “And now I will share with you the _key_ to dealing with sick Harvey.”

She left an intentionally long pause.  Mike wanted to squirm.  Apparently his discomfort was a sort of payment for her, because she grinned.

“Mama Zhou’s hot and sour soup.”

“Donna,” Mike said with relief, grateful for any idea at all to get Harvey back to normal.  “You’re a godsend.”

“I know.”

 

\----

 

>> _I need you to draw up paperwork._

 

Harvey’s text had come at 3 p.m.  It was followed by flurry of others at 3:10.  

 

>> _Answer your texts_

>> _I have done things for you_

>> _Like give you both a job and a blow job_

>> _And so now you will do this:_

>> _Puddles are illegal._

>> _Find precedent._   

 

And another bunch at 3:14.

 

>> _You better be in the file room or the stacks_

>> _figuring this out._

>> _Check British case law._    

 

Mike sighed and knocked his cell phone against his forehead.  Harvey picked up on the first ring when Mike finally decided calling was the fastest way to deal with this latest complaint.

“Puddles aren’t illegal, Harvey.”

He was answered by a hacking cough.  “Should be,” he rasped, barely audible over the phone.  “Work the angles.”  A string of painful-sounding coughs came across the line.  “Big brain,” and then Harvey hung up.

Mike couldn’t fix puddles, but he could get himself to Chinatown and back to Harvey’s within 45 minutes.  When he let himself into Harvey’s apartment with Donna's spare key, he found Harvey asleep on the couch amid a half a dozen crumpled tissues and wearing Mike’s gray t-shirt.  After a moment to appreciate how strangely sweet that was, Mike threw out the tissues and put a bowl of the (magical, Donna implied) soup on the coffee table near Harvey’s nose.  The scent of chili and garlic was almost enough to make Mike’s eyes water.

Harvey grunted awake.  “Soup is not an anti-puddle lawsuit,” he rasped with his eyes still mostly closed.

“It’s what I could come up with on short notice,” Mike said as he pushed Harvey’s hair gently off his forehead while surreptitiously feeling for a fever.  “And you can’t litigate your cold away.”

Harvey scoffed as he heaved himself upright.  “Mama Zhou’s?”  Suspicion and optimism made an interesting blend in his tone.

“Only the best.”

Harvey rolled his eyes and took the spoon Mike proffered.  They both knew Donna was responsible for this, and both of them were glad about it.

 

\----

 

Donna took a long, savoring sip of her coffee.  She gratuitously inhaled just to make Mike fidget impatiently again.

“Donna.”

“This coffee is an acceptable offering, so I will grace you with my insight.” She looked Mike over as if she was sizing him up. “Sing to him.”

“No,” Mike blurted, shaking his head vehemently.  “I'm not doing that. Give me something else.”

“It has to be _Like a Virgin_.”

“You’re joking.”

“You will never know.”

“Donna,” Mike whined. It was undignified.  Harvey would be mortified, although not as mortified as Mike would be if he had to sing that song.

“Ripped wedding dress is optional.”

“Donna.”

“Open his apartment door like it’s yours, and belt it out.  You can do it.”  Then Donna turned to her computer and pretended he wasn’t there.  She was laughing hysterically on the inside, Mike could tell.   

 

\----

 

He didn’t get done with work until late, after 8:00.  When he finally got to Harvey’s door, Donna’s words rattled around in his brain.

_Open his apartment door like it’s yours._

It was such… he didn’t know, a weird turn of phrase.  Maybe she was trying to convey some kind of Shakespearean actor flair, but all he could imagine was Louis in one of those starched ruff collars and knee britches.   

Mike wasn’t really a “flair” kind of guy.  He could do facts.  He could do smart.  He could even do funny and charming.  But bursting through Harvey’s door doing his best Madonna impression was not in his repertoire.  Maybe if he pretended he was impersonating Kevin Bacon in _Flashdance_ it’d make it easier.  

Even assuming he could pull off _Like a Virgin_ , Mike wasn’t sure what it’d do for Harvey.  Make him laugh hard enough to cough up the worst of his phlegm?  

Luck would have it that Harvey was asleep when Mike finally went inside.  He found him curled up under a pile of covers in his bed, shivering through a new wave of his cold.  

Now, _this_.  This didn’t require flair.  Mike just had to strip down and give Harvey some of his body heat.  He could do this without Donna’s advice.  

He curled against Harvey’s back, wrapping an arm around him and tugging him close.  (An added bonus was that Mike didn’t always get to be the big spoon.)  Harvey shifted restlessly in Mike’s embrace.  Mike’s gray t-shirt -- Harvey was still wearing it -- clung to Harvey’s sweat-damp body.  He kept shivering even though his temperature felt too high.  Mike pulled him closer to anchor him.  

Without warning, Harvey accidentally (on purpose) threw an elbow that caught Mike in the ribs.

“Fuck this,” Mike hissed.  

He hauled Harvey tightly to his chest in the best big spoon / little spoon ever known to man.  He pinned Harvey’s arms.  Then he started humming.

 

_Like a virgin._

_Hoo!_

_Touched for the very first time_

 

The lyrics played in his head as he tried to carry a tune next to Harvey’s ear.  

Amazingly, Harvey’s restlessness ceased.  He stayed still while Mike hummed another stanza.  Tension ebbed from him and he melted deeper into Mike’s embrace.

“You are ridiculous,” Harvey rumbled.  

Mike huffed a laugh against the skin of Harvey’s nape.  “Worked though.”   _Thank you, Donna._

“Love that tune,” Harvey said sleepily.  “Reminds me of when I first met you.”

“What?  Why?”

“Donna teased me about you looking fresh out of high school.”

“Teased _you_?”

Harvey must’ve been delirious from his cold because he confessed, “For the look I had after I interviewed you.  I “lost my game face” according to her.  Knew I had to have you.”

The admission was utterly saccharine for Harvey.  Mike rolled him to his back.

“I don’t care if you’re sick, I’m still going to kiss you.”

 

\----

 

The alarm on Mike’s phone chimed a few minutes ago, waking them.  It was obvious when Harvey rolled over to face him that he wasn’t up for going back to work yet, and he was pissed about it.

Mike scratched his fingers along Harvey’s scruffy jawline in the early morning daylight in an attempt to placate him.  “I’m just saying that being sick is the world’s way of saying you’re way too awesome and need to slow down so everyone else can catch up.”

Harvey rolled his eyes.  His voice was gone for real now.  He couldn’t even frog-croak a word without it causing him pain enough to make his eyes tear.  So, they were communicating in eyebrow movements and glares.  The most recent meant, _don’t quit your day job to write greeting cards._

“I know, I know,” Mike responded.  “The world can shut up, since Harvey Specter is miles ahead of everyone else by design.  It’s the natural order of things.”

Harvey nodded, mollified even while ignoring Mike’s obvious sarcasm.

Mike shook his head fondly.  “Never change, old man.”

Harvey scowled.  Mike patted his fuzzy cheek and sat up.  He threw the covers off of both of them.

“Come on, Jolly Old Saint Nick.  You and your graying beard are coming with me.”

Harvey scowled more deeply, which Mike understood to silently mean, “Who are you calling old?”

“Hey, if the beard fits.”

Harvey got out of bed at that.  He was in the bathroom, running hot water into the sink before Mike could stop laughing at Harvey’s wordless annoyance.

When Mike joined him, he was handed the razor and the shaving cream.  

“I get to do the honors?”

Harvey already was wringing hot water from a washcloth so he could drape it over his lower face.  

Being trusted like this was something Mike would never get over.  Harvey -- in one way or another -- had trusted him from that first hour at the Chilton.  Mike could honestly say he had trusted Harvey right back, right from the beginning.  

“No pressure,” Harvey wrote on the steamed mirror.  

Mike ignored the tone and lathered Harvey’s face.  “You know dressing up for work doesn’t mean you can actually _go_ to work.”

Harvey poked Mike in the chest and then pointed to the door.  

“You hired me to do the work?” Mike guessed at Harvey’s meaning.

Harvey nodded and then gestured between the razor and his foamy cheek.  

“You’re such an asshat,” Mike mumbled.  

 

\----

 

“I’m going to put a restraining order on my nose,” Harvey said, blowing it for the millionth time and tossing the damp tissue into the toilet bowl with a “nothing but net” wrist flick.    

“Look, maybe if you didn’t make bad life choices, such as standing with your back to a gigantic puddle and dating your ex-therapist,” Mike teased.

“Careful,” Harvey rasped, his voice coming back.  “Hiring you could be construed as a bad life choice.”

“Not by you it isn’t,” Mike said gently.

Harvey relaxed deeper into the warm water of the tub.  

“You’re right.  It was one of my better choices.”

Mike lazily rubbed Harvey’s chest with the washcloth.  “I can’t decide if I should keep you sick on an ongoing basis.  When you’re grumpy, it’s horrible, but then you say sweet shit like that and I can’t decide.”

Harvey flicked water at Mike’s face.  

 

\----

 

“I'm sorry.”

Mike looked up from his spot on the couch to find Harvey looking fairly contrite.  For Harvey, that was a rare expression and Mike intended to cherish this memory for all of his years.

“For what?” Mike prodded, because an apologetic facial expression was not sufficient for the misery Harvey had spread for the last week.  Plus, Mike had had a very long day at work, holding the fort while Harvey was out for the fifth day.

Harvey rolled his eyes.  “I’m sorry for treating you like my associate when you are actually my boyfriend.”

“Worse than an associate.”

“I apologize for treating you worse that Louis treats the first years.”

Mike nodded, satisfied.  Harvey walked closer and sank to his knees on the floor next to him. He rested his forehead on Mike's knee.  Again, it was sweet in a way that was unsettling.

“I am sorry I was irrationally angry at the Uber and then at you,” Harvey said quietly without looking up.  “I had plans, and I didn't deal with things well when my plans were ruined.”

“Plans?”

“Yes, plans.”

Harvey looked up and reached forward to take Mike's hand.  Something solid and cool pressed into Mike's palm.  He looked down to see a key there.

“Move in with me,” Harvey said.  

“That's what got messed up?”  Mike smiled at Harvey's old-fashioned proposal.

Harvey scowled back.  “If you don't--”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow your roll.  Obviously I'm going to say yes.  I just want to savor the attempt at romance for a few--”

Harvey didn't let him finish.  Mike was ok with how Harvey chose to shut him up.

 

\----

 

Donna sent them a housewarming cactus the next day without being told anything about the key exchange.  The attached card said, in her loopy handwriting, “I am glad you pricks finally found each other!”  


End file.
